Many of us in college/university often start looking for summer jobs whether it be for full-time hours, a co-op or even experience in our field. However, I can't help but notice that a lot of these jobs which are exclusively hiring students (meaning you need to be enrolled to apply) pay incredibly low wages for difficult work.
For example, I had to complete a summer co-op last year doing some kind of manual labor and decided to work for my municipal greenhouse and horticulture department. Full time hours at minimum wage (about 14$/hr here), you were tasked with planting flower beds, weeding and watering for 8 hours straight no matter the weather. Many of those days were spent on my hands and knees, slowly crawling along this 200m long flowerbed picking weeds. I don't know why I was always tasked with that exact bed but they would make me do it in any kind of weather from blistering 34°C heat to pouring rain. The other students experienced the same things, assigned to one specific bed without rotations.
They would preach about health and safety saying “Don't let yourself overheat, take a break, drink some water and stick to the shade for a bit” but would ridicule you for doing those things. They would be extremely strict about our 15's and lunchbreak, often yelling at us to “get back out there” if we hadn't left the lunchroom the minute our break was over.
These kinds of jobs exploit students and make them do labour for minimum wage that no adult would ever settle for. Even in construction, those lowest on the ladder make more than minimum. They look for people who can't work during the school year and that are desperate for any kind of job. Not to mention, these students end up being the scapegoats for older employees and supervisors who push all the shitty tasks onto. Just because they're unexperienced doesn't mean you should exploit them. Summer students are the office bitch and labor slaves. I hate when employers can get away with paying minimum wage for grueling work just because students are considered inexperienced or less valuable than permanent workers. I can pull weeds just as quick and efficiently as John who's been here for 10 years. In fact, I cleaned up beds more thoroughly than any of the permanent staff because they didn't give a shit anymore.